Ballycroghan

Today’s townland is Ballycroghan on the southeastern edge of Bangor. About half of Ballycroghan is made up of residential streets; the rest is farmland. In 1949 a Ballycroghan farmer discovered these Bronze Age swords dating from about 500BC.

The swords are now on display in the North Down Museum.

Not only is the museum the only place in Bangor where you can see Bronze Age swords, it’s the only place where you can see the official spelling of Ballycroghan with a ‘g’. All the local roads spell the townland name with a ‘c’: Ballycrochan Road being the oldest, but now joined by Ballycrochan Avenue, Drive, Crescent, Park, Gardens and Grove.

The Presbyterian church (which is actually in Ballymagee townland) uses the ‘c’ spelling.

Even the local council adopted the ‘c’ spelling for this park.

I want to mention three things here. First, the park is much more attractive than the fenced entrance suggests. Second, most of the park is in the townland of Ballymagee. And third, look at the time for dusk in June and July: 10pm: our long summer evenings are one of the best things about living here.

According to the website of the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project, the name Ballycroghan comes from the Irish Baile Cruacháin, so maybe the ‘c’ spelling is closer to the original? The meaning of cruacháin is something like ‘small hill or stack’. Happily I have images of both a small green hill….

…and a small black stack of silage bales.